


Tomorrow is a New Day

by ragejohn



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Childhood, family life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-20 00:34:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2408663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ragejohn/pseuds/ragejohn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The loop of Kaneki's childhood plays over and over again, until it comes undone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tomorrow is a New Day

When Kaneki was younger, he always felt bolstered to ask his mother if she needed help—help, because she would never sit down and rest, never stop. Asking again and again, day after day, only led him to feel like his words were becoming empty, losing all meaning like water down the drain. Repetitions of “I love you,” “I'll see you later,” “Are you okay?” None of it was real anymore. He was certain his mother never noticed the difference, but the tireless phrases began to sound monotone to his own ears.

  
Half the time, he didn't truly listen to her answers. They, too, were expected, never diverging from the routine. “I love you, too,” “Be safe,” “I'm fine.” He was already halfway to the door, eyes cast out into the city, or stepping into the kitchen, slinging his backpack onto the chair at the bar, before she'd even gotten a syllable out.

  
Kaneki missed her when she was gone. She was his mother, how could he not? But it was when she was no longer there to parrot back a choice line again and again and again that he realized there was no one he had to talk to. Had his mother lived, would their conversations have remained the same? Would every day play out exactly as it always had, his mother bent over the table in the living room, slaving away without a cursory glance, the days spent alone, terribly awkward, the walk to the school on the same linear route, the teacher with her long black hair sweeping it back over her shoulder and behind her ears again and again, and the world, might it have continued on as it always had, unchanging?

  
Now that his mother was gone, was it truly any different? Would tomorrow be any different? Kaneki buried himself in his books—then every day would be different. Kaneki Ken would disappear, immersed into some other personality. Tomorrow he might be an aristocrat courting a woman in the midst of government intrigue, the next a traveling creature neither human nor animal, nameless and faceless, experiencing the world as a bystander to all manner of incredible events—and then a trapeze artist, clumsy and amateur, learning the ropes. Each day was new. It didn't matter if he came home to hostility, or spent hours isolated in a classroom. He always had his books to turn to.

  
And was it any surprise? The worlds inside the worn pages, between the glossed covers, were iridescent and wonderful, as uplifting and alight as hot air balloons, as dark and caustic as lava pools.

  
Kaneki left his old routine in favor of a new one. One without empty niceties, and one without a mother.


End file.
